CenturyLink in particular has had fiber facilities between Pasco and Connell and on to Spokane with a fiber spur to Kahlotus since 1989. As well, CenturyLink facilities are and have been available to both the health center in Connell and the library in Kahlotus through state Department of Information Services. The new PUD fiber investment that has been the source of such celebration has not added capacity, but rather is a total overbuild of existing private facilities.

The editorial and PUD letters also both leaned heavily on the “essential” nature of broadband to a healthy economy and likened government provision of broadband through NoaNet (Northwest Open Access Network) and the PUDs to government provision of electricity in the 1930s.

Again, these happy tales leave out some essential information: Not only did local voters get to have a say about whether they wanted to be on the hook collectively for their government going into the electricity business, but they voted to approve a government electric monopoly for their region. Monopoly provision of an “essential service” is a tough business in which to fail.

In the case of PUD broadband provision, however, voters were not consulted about whether their PUDs should divert millions of electric ratepayers dollars to build a public broadband network. And the PUDs — against the advice of many experts a decade ago — insisted on moving into broadband not as a protected public monopoly, but as an inexperienced governmental entity in a highly competitive marketplace of private providers. The telecommunications and broadband sectors are more technical, volatile, and rapidly changing than any industry today.

There is insufficient benefit and many hidden costs to government utilities entering a dynamic and competitive broadband marketplace. Now, with the help of federal stimulus funds Washington PUDs have doubled down on a faulty decision made a decade ago of needlessly duplicating existing private services. These decisions have already cost electric ratepayers millions of dollars. Continuing these policies will require millions more of them.